Tag Archives: comfort food

Aah, I’ve been meaning to get round to these little he-devils for some time now. And what else was I going to do on another rainy Sunday afternoon?

These come courtesy of food writer, stylist and photographer Cannelle et Vanille and they work an absolute treat. I stuffed myself silly on the sofa, ignoring the thunder and pretending I was still in Spain (or perhaps I was hallucinating from the sugar).

The one that got away... (technically a churro)

The chocolate bisque is the business here: heady hints of star anise, vanilla, coffee and orange enveloped in a rich, custardy chocolate. Too good to save until breakfast.

I’ve been besieged by illness this week, my body mutinously refusing to make food feel at home in my stomach and my appetite going aggressively AWOL. As I sit on the sofa in my pyjamas, still recovering, I must admit that it’s finally happened: I feel underfed. Knowingly underfed. Never say never, eh?

It’s unusual for me to lose my will to eat when I get the lurgy, and unnerving when I stop myself during the course of a long day in bed and realise that, despite the tedium, I’ve thought so little about food that I’ve forgotten to eat. After all, it’s an action I’ve had down pat since childhood.

As a little girl, I used to look forward to a chicken soup lunch when I was off school, washed down with a nice big bottle of Lucozade. Even now, when struck down, I generally get by on comfort food and treats, or at the very least cups of tea and biscuits. However, when I can’t even face a biscuit, I know things are serious.

I measure time in terms of the closest snack or meal, and have been known to throw down my lunch napkin in satisfaction, brush myself down, stretch, then start discussing dinner plans. So it’s alien to me to suddenly have that part of my identity removed, like a gastronomic castration or gustatory lobotomy. Who is this light-headed version of me and what has she done with my tastebuds?

Despite my current state, I’ve been told that the people who don’t know me very well (or who don’t share my passion) are still slightly awed by the proportion of words per day I can dedicate to eating. It’s been normalised by my job – our department can brim with tearful indigation if we even hear that someone in the same postcode has had their lunch stolen, and can attack or defend foodie habits and tastes as vehemently as politicians on a podium.